Student teachers and the standard bursary

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33858, 2 June 1975, Page 12

Student teachers and the standard bursary

In the week after the Budget, the Government made an important change in policy on the allowances that will be paid to student teachers when the standard tertiary -bursary' is introduced next year. The Minister of Finance (Mr Tizard) made it clear that after 1976 no new student teacher would be paid an allowance higher than the standard bursary. Since then, the Minister of Education (Mr Amos) has said that even after 1976, students applying for admission to teachers’ colleges would be given any choice between a standard bursary, without any strings attached, and a more generous allowance which-carries with it a commitment to later service. Students would not be required to make the choice, he said, until after they had been selected for admission an merit alone. This policy is to be preferred to that described by Mr Tizard in the Budget The standard bursary has much to commend it and the bonding system had many shortcomings. But if a student is prepared to make a firm commitment to teaching, and is. in every other way the match of his fellow applicants, the bond justifies a higher bursary—just as it has justified the higher bursary in the past The policy given by Mr Amos at the end of last week ensures one simple and worth-while outcome: no-one who is well qualified to be a teacher and who is dedicated to the profession will be excluded because he cannot afford to train on the standard bursary. Offering the more generous bonded allowance to. teachers’ .college students should at least prevent any decline in the calibre of people who take up teaching. Having yielded this much to the student teachers, the Government should resist any demand to make the bond less stringent. If the Government is prepared to. pay more to get good teachers, it is entitled to a firm guarantee that its extra expenditure will achieve that end. None of the other major advantages of having a standard tertiary bursary will be tost if student teachers are paid a higher bonded allowance. The limited advantage which is gained, of attracting larger numbers to apply to enter teaching alleges from which the colleges can pick the best ’awmdatea, justifies the Governments change of Heart.